Finally
by tinywanderer
Summary: Lily finally realizes her mistakes


obviously not mine...

* * *

The snow flurried outside the castle as I tried my hardest to keep my eyes open for a little longer. It was past midnight on a tuesday as I lounged by the fire. I had practiced the speech I was about to deliver in front of the mirror every morning for the past month and I was still nowhere near ready to deliver it. I looked outside the window towards the grounds and noticed the rustling limbs of the Whomping Willow blowing about in the strong wind. The world outside looks as miserable and cold as I feel sitting there next to the dying fire.

More time passed as I sat there and the common room soon emptied. I think back on the embarrassing moment I had not two hours ago, when I finally just told myself to get my apology done with, like ripping off a band-aid. But when I went to look for James up in his dormitory, trying to stop shaking the whole way up the curving staircase, I found only a very messy room and Sirius Black sitting on his bed.

My face warms as I sit thinking of the expression on the dark-haired boy's face when he saw who was standing in the doorway. At first, he sat there, gaping wide mouthed at me before a cruel smirk broke out on his face.

"Remus isn't here Evans. He went to the library to help Peter on his essay for Transfiguration," he said in a nasty voice, with his gray eyes boring into me.

I shrank against the doorway, trying to decide whether or not to confide in Sirius that I was actually looking for someone else. I had never gone out of my way to talk to anybody before and I could feel the panic of embarrassment slowly creeping down on me as a stood in silence. Apparently I was so nervous that I took too long to respond to what the boy had said. He was looking at me expectantly. I cleared my throat nervously.

"Actually Sirius," I began. "I'm looking for Potter. Do you know where he is?"

Sirius didn't say anything at first. His eyebrows shot way up and disappeared behind the locks of hair that drooped over his forehead. My nervousness grew as he stared at me and my face flushed some more. He was surprised but soon became incredibly puzzled.

"What did Prongs do to you this time?" The question and the harsh way it passed his lips surprised me. "He swears he hasn't so much as looked at you for the last two months."

After that comment, I swallowed thickly. The sweat started to form on my forehead and make my skin felt incredibly hot by the doorway. I was feeling the need to escape increase as the seconds passed and felt my feet subconsciously slide backwards towards the open door. My body couldn't relax when I realized he wouldn't answer my question.

"I know. I just wanted to talk to him about something," I paused. "Everything."

I had blurted out the first thing that came into my head and made my anguish known in a way that would leave me no escape. Sirius would have something over me if I decided to just drop everything and get through the last months of school without trying to apologize. My eyes darted across the room when I saw Sirius get up from his bed and walk towards the door where I stood.

"He's not here," he said with a solemn face, and then his expression changed. "But if you find him, please don't yell at him anymore."

With that last sentence, he pushed me out of the doorway and closed the door with a decisive snap.

* * *

Now sitting here by the fire, I can't help but feel so incredibly guilty for what I did to James Potter. I knew he wasn't as bad as I proclaimed him to be, quite publicly too. But I just wanted him to stop bringing me to everyone's attention. Every time he wanted to talk to me it was as if he was inviting anyone within fifty feet to a front row seat to our conversations and I couldn't feel comfortable with the large amount of pairs of eyes resting on me.

I feel largely ashamed for what I said to him when I cornered his friends out after hours. I had known about Remus being a werewolf for years, but I wanted to test James' great declaration of love for me by giving him the perfect opportunity to show his trust in me. At the time this had seemed like the perfect way for me to see if he was truly as much in love with me as he claimed. If he came clean and told me his great secret, then I would know he meant every word when he said he didn't want to live without me. Now I cringe when I think about that stupid wish.

I confronted them about their secrets, in the middle of a drafty and open hallway. I realize now how big of a mistake that was; anyone could have eavesdropped on the conversation and Remus could have possibly been expelled if not arrested. But I was taken by surprise when I saw the fire burning in James' eyes as he told his friends that they should go to bed before he turned to me and said that where they had been was none of my business. I was about to protest but he coldly said they would come find me tomorrow to find out what detention I would assign them for being out after hours but that there was no reason for me to know what they had been doing.

As soon as his friends were out of sight, he rounded on me with his wand pointed straight at my face. After saying something about me telling teachers and other students about Remus' problem, he declared he was going to have to erase my memory of anything I had known about Remus as a precaution. I looked up towards his face with a shocked expression; his eyes were tight and reluctant but determined. I was so disappointed that everything happening was opposite to my brilliant plan. His distrust for me was so great that he was going to swipe my memory of anything that could harm his friend because he thought of me as a snitch. As guilty as I feel for everything I did, that thought still brings tears to my eyes.

I realize now how many stupid things I can say when I'm angry and pushed into a corner. Before he could take a breath to cast the spell on me, I had begun rambling about how I had known about Remus being a werewolf for years and had kept the secret in hopes that James would have shown some amount of trust in me by telling me about it. I began to grow increasingly angry with him and with myself for how pathetic I sounded as my explanations for my curiosity sprang forth. Then I began saying horrible things about him and his integrity that I had never dared think because I knew they weren't true. Except for the memory erasing. I was incredibly surprised that he would even consider going through with it.

The things I said still scare me incredibly because I had never thought of myself as a cruel person. I called him a selfish boy who gallivanted around pretending to like me for his own entertainment. I told him about my discomfort whenever he spoke to me in front of large audiences. I called him cruel, heartless, and untrustworthy for trying to take away part of my mind before I realized that while I had been speaking, he had backed as far away from me as he could. His wand clattered to the cold floor and rolled away from him. I'm not entirely sure whether he was disgusted with himself or what I had said but one thing was clear, he was hurt. I could feel the cold draft from the hallway hit me before he spoke.

"I wont talk to you again if I bother and embarrass you so much. You can keep your knowledge of what Remus is as long as you keep your mouth shut," And with that, he turned, bent to pick up his fallen wand, and walked away towards his dormitory and his loyal friends.

* * *

I rested my head against the cold glass of the window and watched my breath fog the glass, as I sat and waited for him to come back from one of the undiscovered corners of the school. I was cold, shivering in the chair by the now long dead fire wondering how much longer he would take to come back from wherever he had gone this time. A sound by the portrait hole made me lift my head. I saw walking into the room, two boys, the first was sandy haired followed by a squat blonde who was still mid-sentence, full of enthusiasm.

"…And did you see how I got the last part of the answer before you could tell me Moony? I think this is really helping. I might even pass Transfiguration this time. I still cant figure out why Prongs refuses to help me with it, I mean, not to say you're not really good at it, but, he's brilliant," he kept on rambling about his essay as he and Remus finally noticed that the common room wasn't empty at all.

I felt my face drain of its color as I thought about how Remus had been avoiding me too. I wasn't entirely sure but I had a notion that James had refused to tell his friends exactly what I had said to get him into his sour mood for such a long time. He probably hadn't said anything, which meant that Remus had no idea that I still considered him one of my few good friends and thought that I actively hated him and his condition. I stood up right away and walked towards him, noticed how he flinched when I came near.

"Remus, please. You have to know. I already knew about everything and I didn't think any less of you. In fact, I…" he didn't let me finish. He raised his hand and gave me a look that said everything and nothing at the same time.

"Thank you, Lily. I really appreciate your tolerance," he'd chosen his words carefully and had to know how much the second meaning behind it was burning inside of me. "I still think you have to fix things with James. Soon."

With that, he gave me a sad smile and turned to grab Peter's arm, before dragging his friend off to their dormitory and bed. I sighed and leaned back against the wall as my shoulders slumped. I felt my misery set even deeper onto myself and wondered if I would ever learn to just shut my big mouth. It wasn't long before the portrait hole opened again. The wall I had been leaning on had somehow moved and I realized, too late, that I was leaning on the backside of the Fat Lady.

What followed immediately after is somewhat hazy for me to remember. I felt a lot of pain when my head hit the ground and my vision turned completely black for a second when I opened my eyes. Then, there was a bright light keeping my eyes from seeing anything around me and the ringing in my ears was so sharp, I couldn't hear anything either. For a moment I felt as if all of my senses had been impaired with my fall. I couldn't see, hear, or feel the ground that I expected was underneath me still.

* * *

It wasn't until my back hit the soft cushions of the couch directly in front of the fire that I realized, whoever had seen me fall after trying to come into the common room, had taken me to rest on a more comfortable place. My eyes slowly focused on the hazel eyes that I hadn't made contact with in what felt like years. I was disappointed though when they looked away from me, still reflecting the sadness I had seen when I last looked into their depths. He leaned back and got up from the crouch he had been on over me. He moved towards the dead fire and shot a spell at it that immediately made the glowing ambers burst into flame again.

"Do you feel alright, Evans?" I flinched when the tone of his voice reached my ears. It didn't sound like he actually wanted to know.

"I'm fine," I replied timidly. The words I had practiced for weeks flew out of my mind. "I'll take some aspirin upstairs later."

He turned so he was facing me, He shot me a puzzled look but didn't ask what muggle contraption I was talking about this time. I was dismayed though when he took my confirmation that I was alright as his cue to try to get away from me once again. Without another look at me, he turned and began to head towards the boys' staircase on the far corner of the common room, where his friends were most likely waiting.

I contemplated letting him go without trying to talk to him but remembered my earlier mistake. I knew Sirius and Remus would tell him I had been looking for him and the embarrassment of not telling him myself that I needed to talk to him would make any attempts I had at making an apology vanish completely.

"Potter," I called after him. "James. Please let me talk to you."

He froze mid-step. I hadn't called him by his first name for as long as I could remember. I looked at him for the first time in months, knowing that since his back was to me, he wouldn't see me looking. His shoulders were hunched and the hair that had been shiny and pointing in every direction in a carefully arranged mass of disarray was now limp and looked dirty. He turned to me and I braced myself. I expected him to yell at me or to coldly tell me he was just following with what I had so obviously wanted. But his face was blank and expectant. He was waiting for me to begin.

"I don't know where to start," I confessed nervously. "I didn't mean to insult you or your loyalty to your friends."

I wrung my hands nervously and waited a split second to see if I would get a reaction from him. I didn't. I took a shaky breath and kept going, knowing that I wasn't anywhere near done.

"You are a great friend who risked being thrown in jail and your safety to help someone. You're not selfish at all. And you haven't hexed Snape or anyone else since the end of fifth year," I took a deep breath; bracing myself for the last thing I had to say. "I'm sorry that I made you think that I hate you. Because I don't."

He opened his mouth to say something to me but I couldn't stop now. I had to keep going.

"I'm not going to say that I trust you completely. I just know that you wouldn't do something cruel just for fun. But I do feel uncomfortable around you because you don't seem to feel at all nervous when everyone is looking at you, and I do."

I took a deep breath after I was done. This terrifying conversation had taken a great weight off my shoulders and the guilt I had been feeling was dissipating as I realized he wasn't going to throw my apology back in my face.

"That still doesn't change anything, Evans," my hearth sank. I had been so sure he would forgive me; I didn't know how to react. "I can't talk to you at all because any time I do, people are going to stare either way."

I wanted to fix this weird situation I now found myself in. No matter how uncomfortable I was around him, he was still a magnetic person. I somehow found myself thinking of ways where I would be able to talk to him, spend time in his presence. I found the solution almost instantly.

"Peter was talking earlier about how brilliant you are at Transfiguration," I began cautiously. "Despite the fact that I spend hours trying to understand it, I still struggle greatly in class and with the homework. Do you think we could work on it together? I'm sure we can try to have actual conversations while working without too many people around."

He smiled slightly at my suggestion before nodding and wishing me goodnight.

* * *

The few next weeks were more frustrating than the ones where James and I had been avoiding each other. There wasn't a time that fit both of our schedules for us to study and talk like I had wanted to. Between our classes, my prefect duties, and his busy Quidditch schedule, the only times I even saw him at all were at meals.

At first we had tried to sit by the fire late at night with our textbooks open on the table in front of us but we were so exhausted that neither of us had enough energy to say much of anything. Those meetings always left me dissatisfied and wanting more of anything that had to do with him.

There was a particularly bad day that changed everything and made me finally take up the courage associated with my house. I had woken up late, forgotten my homework piled by my bed, and been told by my professor in Herbology that I should head to dinner early to avoid any more accidents. On the way to the castle I had seen Snape with his Slytherin friends standing around in the melting snow. They were particularly horrible, throwing insults and leftover pieces of dead roots and twigs uprooted where the snow had melted. I tried to ignore everything and rushed past them towards the castle's warmth and dinner.

My friends were all either sick with colds or had disappeared to talk about the next Hogsmeade visit and their outfits so I wasn't really looking forward to dinner alone. James and his friends were sitting at the opposite side of the table, talking in animated voices. I berated myself for being incredibly afraid of talking to him, no matter how much I was longing for his brightening company.

As I walked towards my usual seat far away from him and his friends, James looked up at me. I could see it in his eyes, how much he wished for me to overcome my shyness and come sit with him. I knew he would never directly ask, but I could still see what he wished there, reflected in his hazel eyes.

For a second, I stood by the empty seat I was about to take, trying to decide on what to do. I could feel my face grow hot, my insides tingling with the embarrassment that I was expecting would come. But I bravely stepped away from where I had been about to sit and slowly walked over to the end of the table where the Marauders were sitting. I took a deep breath as I stood behind Peter.

James' eyes shined with the realization of what I was about to do. His lack of interest in his friends' conversation also made them look up at me. My flushed face was nothing compared to my difficulty breathing as I pictured heads turning in our, my, direction. Sirius and Remus suddenly had large smiles on their faces and scooted to make room for me smack in the middle of their cluster, directly next to James.

I carefully lowered myself into the seat next to James and peered up at his face. The sight I faced with was glorious. His eyes, which I had always thought were beautiful, were shining with some many different shades of gold and speckles of darker brown and green that I was momentarily speechless. His dazzling smile broke me out of my frozen state and I turned to face the rest of our companions. Once the shock of what I had done settled down on top of us, the conversation flowed once again.

"Lily," Sirius said as he paused from stuffing his mouth with pie. "Are you going to the Quidditch match tomorrow?"

I looked at him puzzled for a second. I hadn't even known that the season wasn't over yet. "I've actually never really gone to one. Its always too windy and cold."

The looks I was getting from James and Sirius were enough to make me blush again. Then, Remus and Peter began exclaiming of how I had to go with them to a match and that they had come up with ways to stay warm during the game.

"Actually, it was James who figured that one out," Sirius said. He looked to his friend as a way to summon an explanation. James picked up on the hint right away and began the explanation.

"I was in the library looking up some spells for that prank we played after the exams in third year and found a couple of things that help with heating when its really cold outside. Amongst other things."

I could tell James and his friends were trying very hard to distract me so I wouldn't feel nervous and it was working. During dinner, I had laughed, joked, and forgotten all of the things that had been making my day horrendous and nerve-wracking.

When we stumbled into the common room, I realized that I was thinking up different ways to keep James talking to me about anything just to see his dazzling smile. I turned to him to start another conversation but he beat me to the punch.

"Well," he said, looking to the rest of his friends. "Are you guys ready to go up?"

My face fell slightly. I had been having so much fun with him it had never occurred to me that he might not want to spend any more time with me than necessary. I turned to go up the girls' staircase, feeling the disappointment descend on me and had gotten two steps away from him before I felt a tug on the back of my robes.

"Lily," he said as he looked cautiously at me. "Aren't you coming too? We have more things to tell you about the match tomorrow."

I tried to hide my happiness at the invitation. "Wow. Am I really allowed to enter your lair?"

He chuckled as he pulled me by my hands up the stairs to their room. He paused outside the door before pushing it open for me. It was nothing like I had imagined. It wasn't incredibly messy or filled with the chaos that followed those boys around. The room had the four beds that the boys used and an array of pillows set on the floor in the middle of the room. A chest with five heavy locks sat at the far wall where an array of peeling old posters had been hung.

"We were too lazy to take them down after first year," James whispered in my ear. "As each year went on, we just kept adding them on. We were planning on making some big fuss over taking them all down at the end of seventh year. Sirius wants each one of us to keep a part of what we manage to get down."

I headed over to the pile of pillows in the center of the floor but James stopped me and insisted I sit on his bed, muttering something about Sirius and his escapades inside the room and its various surfaces. His friend only scowled but didn't refute James' claim.

Sirius simply looked at the other boys and they silently nodded as if a full conversation had passed without my knowledge. Without another word, Sirius walked over to the chest in the corner, unlocked all of the heavy chains from it, and took it over for me to see it. Inside, was an array of vials filled with potions of different colors, a couple of old wizard pictures, a piece of old parchment, and a silvery piece of cloth.

"What is all this?" I asked as the smooth and silky fabric washed over my fingertips.

"Every official secret that we have is hidden inside of this chest. The cloak is mine. Its what we use to go around the castle undetected," James explained first.

"Those old pictures are of my family members," continued Sirius. "We don't get along but they're still my flesh and blood. I keep them there so I don't have to be constantly reminded about the enormous hate they have for me."

"And this," ended Remus. "Is the Marauder's Map."

He held up the ratty piece of parchment, opened it's crackling pages, and muttered something while pointing his wand at its center. Amongst its pages were the maps of the grounds of Hogwarts and in tiny, labeled dots were the names of the students and teachers who were roaming the castle. My eyes widened as I began to go through in my mind every prank these boys had pulled and understood how they had managed to make them so flawlessly brilliant.

"Its almost sad that most of the things we've come up with were accidents," James murmured to me. "We'd been looking up everything we could on animagi and kept finding random pieces of information that could be incredibly useful later on."

After describing the importance of each item inside the chest, the boys began exclaiming over which team to support. Hufflepuff winning would be advantageous to Gryffindor in the long run is what they kept saying but I had no idea whether or not it was true. After insisting that I sit with them at the match instead of sitting in the dorm rooms keeping company to my fellow roommates who were still incredibly sick, I gave them a wave as goodbye and headed up to my bed.

It wasn't until my head hit the pillow that I understood just exactly what the Marauders had just done. James and his friends had told me all of their secrets, just like I had wanted him to do before we had that fight. A surprisingly warm tingle shot up my body as I realized what that meant.

* * *

The sun shone brightly through my window the next morning. I had barely slept at all the night before because of my new enthusiasm towards James. I dressed warmly despite the signs of good weather outside since the stands were bound to be windy. To show my support to Hufflepuff, I dressed in my only yellow sweater and wrapped my scarf around my neck. At first, I thought about trying to have my hair out of its original bun but thought of how ridiculous it would after being blown about in the wind.

As I gave my reflection a last critical look, I began to panic on whether or not the Marauders had really meant that I was supposed to sit with them for the match. I didn't want to go to the match and end up sitting by myself so I decided that I would make my way down the staircase slowly to save my embarrassment if they had already left without me. I was surprised to find them sitting on the comfortable chairs at the bottom of the girls' staircase, talking in low voices when I walked down.

As soon as they saw I was in the room, all four boys sprang to their feet and bound over to where I was standing. I could tell Sirius and James could barely control their excitement about the match as they practically leaped towards the field. When we got to the stands, most of the seats were already taken but Sirius rudely pushed people out of his way to make more room for all five of us on a stretch of seats.

Sirius pushed me to the front of the row to make it easier for me to see. "Best view in the house, Evans."

The match was actually exhilarating. I hadn't known what to expect and didn't really know much about the rules or anything but all four boys took turns in telling me what was going on. I was surprised they could tell what was going on since both teams were moving almost too fast to be able to tell who they were aside from the distinguishing color of the uniforms. Sometimes Sirius and James got very angry at what the calls of the game but still had the grace to blush when they realized I heard their insults. With the small jars of blue fire, spelled cloaks, and huddled proximity I never felt the cold I had been afraid of nor the wind that I had been expecting. By the time the game ended, I felt a welcome sense of warmth for my new friendships.

* * *

After making our way back to the common room, I looked over behind me at the boys who had made my day. James gave me a brief smile before he sat by the fire and patted the seat next to him as an invitation. The second I had settled next to him and leaned close as I dared to still be comfortable in the small space, I realized how flustered I felt around James and his warm soapy smell. I turned my head to look at the rest of the boys who hadn't followed suit and taken a seat as well.

"Well, I think all of those nights fully awake are starting to take their toll on me," Sirius said in a fake tired voice. He turned to Remus and Peter. "Don't you guys need to go to bed too?"

Peter nodded eagerly, ready to accept any suggestion Sirius made but Remus looked at him suspiciously. His gaze traveled to James and I sitting on the couch before slowly letting his mouth open into an entirely fake yawn as well. He stretched his arms as his signal that he thought bed was a good idea and left to his bed mumbling about the full moon having worn him out last week. My eyes widened when I realized this would be one of the first times that James and I would be alone with no distractions or people.

After they had gone, I turned to James suddenly at a loss of what to say. He looked very hesitant of something but seemed determined to get whatever he wanted to say out of his system. I looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to begin.

"Lily," he began quietly. "We've been having fun, right?" His hand immediately reached towards his hair and dove repeatedly through the mess. "And you know that I haven't even looked at Snape since last year or been too loud and obnoxious. I was thinking that maybe we could be friends now."

He eyed me warily when he was done speaking. After all this time I realized how much more I wanted out of him. "I don't want to be friends with you James."

His expression fell as soon as the words were out of my mouth. But I couldn't bring myself to tell him exactly why I didn't want to be his friend. After having spent so much time with him and his friends, I knew he was the kind of person that I had been waiting for years. I knew I couldn't come up with the courage to fully say everything that I wanted to, but I settled for the next best thing.

The room was dark and I had barely turned back to him, when I grabbed his arm and pulled his face towards mine. I kissed him forcefully, desperately. I put all of the regret I had in not believing his declarations of love for the previous years and the newfound emotions I had developed for him. He responded just as urgently, pulling me closer to him, running his hands up my torso as mine buried in his hair. I could feel him hug me too tightly as I relished the feel of his warm body wrapping around me. I ran my tongue against his lips, wanting more of him. He opened his mouth and surprised me by quickly taking control and having his tongue sweep into my mouth. With the close proximity we were in, I could smell him all around me in this haze of soap.

I tugged on his bottom lip with my teeth when we pulled back. As soon as I opened my mouth to speak, he pulled me back towards him.

"James, please just let…"

He interrupted me. "No. Don't say anything. I don't want this to end yet. You can be as mad at me for this as you want later."

I let myself be enveloped by him again when I suddenly realized what he had said. I roughly grabbed his shoulders and pushed him away when those words registered in my head. I couldn't believe he didn't already know about my feelings for him after the kiss that I had initiated. So I plowed into my speech before he could interrupt me again.

"All of this time I've spent with you in the last couple of weeks has given me the opportunity to see how wrong I had been about you. I got to see you sacrifice yourself for your friends and understand your sense of humor. I don't want to be your friend because I want more out of you. Please say you'll take me to Hogsmeade on a date next weekend."

His face lit up by the time I was done speaking. He pulled me back towards his lips and whispered one word. "Finally."

* * *

I don't care about comments.

I'm not big on ideas for writing which is why any story I write will be really crappy but I want to be an editor so I'm gonna start beta-ing.


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